Sheikh Hasina addresses the 72nd United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 21, 2017. (Reuters)

AFP, United Nations

Friday, 22 September 2017

Bangladesh’s prime minister on Thursday proposed creating UN-supervised safe zones inside Myanmar to protect Rohingya Muslims who are fleeing a military crackdown to seek refuge in her country.

“These people must be able to return to their homeland in safety, security and dignity,” Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told the UN General Assembly.

The United Nations says more than 420,000 Rohingya have fled for safety to Bangladesh in the face of an army campaign in northern Rakhine state that includes rape and the burning of villages. The military operation was sparked by attacks carried out by Rohingya militants on police posts on August 25.

Hasina accused Myanmar authorities of laying landmines on the border to prevent the Rohingyas from returning and said the United Nations must take immediate measures to find a solution to the crisis.

Five-point plan

The prime minister laid out a five-point plan that called for the protection of the Rohingyas in “safe zones that could be created inside Myanmar under UN supervision.”

The United Nations has described the military operation as “ethnic cleansing” and French President Emmanuel Macron went further, describing it as a “genocide.”

Myanmar must stop the violence and “the practice of ethnic cleansing”, agree to allow a UN fact-finding mission, ensure the return of refugees and abide by a report that recommends citizenship for the Rohingya, said Hasina. They currently lack it.

There has been mounting international outrage over the plight of the Rohingya, prompting the UN Security Council this month to call for an end to the violence.

The creation of such “safe areas” would require the approval of the Security Council where China, a strong supporter of Myanmar’s former junta, has veto power.

On Monday, the Turnbull government suddenly stripped around 100 asylum seekers currently living in Australia of their pitiful income support of $100 a week and demanded they leave their public housing within three weeks, effectively leaving them destitute and homelessness.

The asylum seekers had been transferred to Australia for medical treatment from the country’s offshore detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. While the initial targets are single people, who may include pregnant women, around 400 other men, women and children, including more than 37 infants, could be next.

This is a premeditated and calculated attack on the basic legal and democratic rights of refugees, designed to give them no choice but to go back into indefinite detention on Nauru or Manus, or be deported to the countries they fled. It is part of a new turn by the increasingly unstable Liberal-National Coalition government to try to whip up a nationalistic and xenophobic constituency.

Defending the move on talkback radio, Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton, one of the government’s key figures, branded lawyers who represent asylum seekers as “un-Australian.” In other words, it is treasonous for lawyers to perform their obligations to defend the legal rights of their clients.

Dutton demonised both the lawyers and the refugees, saying lawyers were “playing the game with these people,” who were taking Australia “for a ride.”

The government is using a new form of visa—the “final departure Bridging E Visa”—which is the first step to deportation. Immigration Department letters, leaked to the media, told the asylum seekers: “You will be expected to support yourself in the community until departing Australia. From Monday 28 August you will need to find money each week for your own accommodation costs.”

The letters added: “From this date, you will also be responsible for all your other living costs like food, clothing and transport. You are expected to sign the Code of Behaviour when you are released into the Australian community. The Code of Behaviour outlines how you are to behave in the community.”

Anyone who violates the repressive code can be deported. Under the code, visa holders must adhere to “Australian values,” not withhold information from officials, and not engage in any “anti-social” or “disruptive” activities.

According to the department, “anti-social” means “an action that is against the order of society. This may include damaging property, spitting or swearing in public or other actions that other people might find offensive. “Disruptive” means “to cause disorder or to disturb someone or something.”

Under previous visas, the refugees were not permitted to work and had to depend on charities. Now, they will be permitted to work, but many cannot due to medical conditions and employers are unlikely to hire people who are living under constant threat of removal.

Having endured great suffering, fled persecution and then been incarcerated in hellhole conditions on Nauru or Manus Island, these innocent people are now being reduced to penury to try to force them back to harm. They are being cruelly punished in order to deter any refugees from attempting to seek asylum in Australia.

For months, the government has also threatened thousands of other asylum seekers, currently living in Australia, with forced removal to their countries of origin if they do not complete complex refugee visa applications by October 1.

The government’s latest actions have provoked widespread outrage and thousands of people across the country have offered sanctuary to the asylum seekers. On social media, people have offered rooms in their homes, food and clothing. Numbers of churches have offered protection and financial support.

This is not the first time that the government has sought to evict the refugees. Protests erupted around Australia in March last year when the government announced plans to remove 267 people back to the offshore camps.

At the time, the Turnbull government claimed to have backed down from its assault, but as the WSWS pointed out, this was only a temporary reprieve. Various online protest groups, the Greens and pseudo-left groups heralded this as a great victory, and proof that the government and the rest of the political establishment could be pressured into changing course.

This “Let Them Stay” campaign was also designed to funnel popular opposition back behind the political parties that threw the refugees into detention in the first place—namely the Greens-backed Labor government that reopened Manus Island and Nauru in 2012.

A similar line up is occurring again. Because of groundswell opposition, Labor politicians are attempting to distance themselves from the government’s move, while reiterating their bipartisan commitment that no refugee who tries to enter Australia by boat will ever be permitted to settle in the country.

At the same time, he claimed that it had “nothing to do with strong borders or stopping people-smugglers.” These are the code words that both Labor and the Liberal-National Coalition have used to package their anti-refugee regime. Shorten restated his agreement with the government that “we don’t want to see the people smugglers back in business.”

Greens leader Senator Richard Di Natale said he was seeking advice on whether the creation of the new bridging visa could be disallowed in the Senate. “We do call on members of the crossbench and the Labor party to support us in doing everything we can to stop this unspeakable cruel act getting through the Senate,” Di Natale said.

This posturing is just as hypocritical as Labor’s. The Greens propped up the minority Labor government of Julia Gillard when it reopened the prison camps on Manus and Nauru. The government’s latest move underscores how far it will go to enforce the brutal regime that Labor put in place.

With the US-led wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria escalating, the world refugee crisis, the greatest since World War II, will worsen. In response, governments across the globe have vilified refugees and fomented xenophobia, with Australian governments pioneering the inhuman drive to “stop the boats.”

The proposal by the nationalist Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet, Frp) had no support from other parliamentary parties, Solberg said.

“Frp has always been of the opinion that people whose asylum applications are rejected should be held in secured facilities. They have not received backing for that, and we agree with this [the lack of backing, ed.],” the PM told NRK.

“This is an old Frp proposal that I heard Sylvi [Listhaug, minister for immigration and Frp MP, ed.] repeat yesterday, but it is not a foundation for this government and is not going to become one,” Solberg continued.

The PM said that detaining rejected asylum seekers was “not government policy”.

Listhaug came in for criticism after she said on Thursday that asylum seekers arriving in Norway without definitive identification or papers should be held in secured facilities until their identity could be confirmed.

Asylum seekers whose applications are rejected but do not leave Norway of their own free will should also be detained, she said.

International human rights conventions should not be allowed to take precedence over the necessity of the measure, Listhaug told NRK.

But Solberg dismissed the notion that human rights conventions could be renegotiated following the September 11th election.

“We must use secured facilities more, but we will not broaden the scope of who can be detained in them,” she told NRK.

“Frp has always said this. That they are saying it again during the election campaign cannot come as a surprise to anyone. But it is not the policy of the other conservative parties,” she added.

“We believe that it is possible to ensure the security of Norwegians, fight terror and have a responsible immigration policy within the parameters of the human rights conventions,” Solberg said.

Egyptians wait on shore as a coast guard boat arrives carrying the bodies recovered from a Europe-bound boat that capsized off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, in Rosetta, Egypt. (File photo: AP)

Reuters, Berlin

Monday, 28 August 2017

Germany said on Monday it had reached a deal with Egypt to stem the flow of migrants from the
Arab country, part of a broader push by Berlin to head off waves of migrants that have stoked domestic political tensions.

The arrival in Germany of a million refugees over the last two years, mainly from Syria and Iraq, opened deep rifts in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party and is becoming a campaign theme ahead of a Sept. 24 national election.

Merkel and the European Union have already sealed a migrants deal with Turkey to stem the flow from the Middle East and her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the Egypt deal would “fight illegal immigration and the criminal smuggling of people”.

“Under this agreement, there are a number of measures for political and economic support so that a better climate and better living conditions can be achieved for refugees in Egypt,” Seibert told a regular government news conference in Berlin. “Together, we will set up a center for jobs, migration and reintegration”, he added. This center would be in Egypt, a transit country for migrants striving to reach Europe.

In Paris, meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron prepared to host a summit of Europe’s “big four” continental powers including Germany, as well as three African nations to tackle Europe’s migrant crisis. Libya, Chad and Niger are all transit nations for migrants bound for Europe.

Since Turkey and the EU reached an agreement a year ago to curb the flow of migrants and refugees sailing from Turkish shores to Greece, most migrants have taken the more dangerous route from North Africa to Italy.

In Libya, people traffickers have operated with relative ease, but many migrants and refugees also set off from Egypt.

Merkel said in a weekend newspaper interview she has no regrets about her 2015 decision to open Germany’s borders to hundreds of thousands of refugees and added she will not be deterred from campaigning by angry hecklers.

Seeking a fourth term, Merkel has had to contend with loud and sustained heckling on her campaign trail from demonstrators strongly opposed to her refugee policies.

Norway’s Directorate of Immigration (Utlendingsdirektorat, UDI) has said that it will close 17 asylum centres across the country.

The decision is likely to affect several hundred under-age asylum seekers, reports NRK.

UDI did not name all the centres to be closed, but did say that some centres for unaccompanied minors would be included.

“The basis for this is that UDI has far too much available capacity. This is a result of 31,000 asylum seekers coming [to Norway] in 2015, compared to just 3,460 last year. That is a reduction of over 27,000 asylum seekers,” UDI’s regional director Stig Arne Thune told NRK.

The closures encompass 1,610 places at asylum centres, of which 320 are earmarked for unaccompanied minors arriving in the country, according to the report.

Norsk Mottaksdrift, a company that has run several asylum centres under the auspices of UDI, will now close its last remaining centre, in the town of Skei, under orders from UDI.

The company’s owner Per Erik Lykstad told NRK that, although reaction amongst his employees had been varied, the news had not come as a surprise.

“I understand that UDI must downsize when there are fewer asylum seekers. But it will be a challenge if there is an increase in numbers of asylum seekers in future. We will be less well-prepared,” he said.

Lykstad said the announcement was difficult to take for a number of reasons.

“This is special for us as a company, because Skei is the last centre we are operating. This type of business is now over for us. In 2016 we had around 300 employees at our centres, by December we’ll have none,” he said.

Source: thelocal.no

]]>http://dawatmedia.com/norway/norwegian-asylum-centres-capacity-to-be-reduced-by-further-1600/feed/0Hyrbyair Marri Message on world RefugeeDayhttp://dawatmedia.com/asylum-seekers-and-refugees/hyrbyair-marri-message-on-worldrefugeeday/
http://dawatmedia.com/asylum-seekers-and-refugees/hyrbyair-marri-message-on-worldrefugeeday/#respondSat, 22 Jul 2017 22:36:10 +0000http://dawatmedia.com/?p=1057Mr Marri’s message is as following: I thank the organisers of this event for inviting our friend Aziz Baloch to speak here today. “The Baloch nation has never enjoyed any peace, stability and prosperity since the British imperial army invaded Balochistan in 1839. The British drew the Goldsmith Line in 1871, and Durand Line in 1893, and divided Balochistan into three parts, in order to weaken the Baloch and Afghan nation. Despite these divisions the Baloch struggle to regain their independence continued. The Baloch in Western part of Balochistan pushed the Persian out of their homeland by 1910 but Persian rulers reoccupied it in 1928. Similarly, after the British withdrawal from the sub-continent, the Easter part of Balochistan became independent in August 1947 but it was invaded by the Muslim Punjabi army of the newly created state of Pakistan 1948. Whitehall’s creation was aimed at dividing the sub-continent and weakening India. Since, then the foreign occupying powers have been treating Balochistan as their colony, and the international community including the United Nations remained and continues to remain silent against the Baloch genocide by Pakistan and Iran. Pakistan has made Balochistan a slaughter house for the people of Balochistan. Regular military attacks, enforced-disappearances and abduction of Baloch women and children have become daily routine of the Pakistani army across Balochistan. Lately, Pakistan forces have started to abduct and terrorise the women and children of those Baloch activists who are involved in peaceful and political struggle for freedom of Balochistan. Ladies and gentlemen: The latest and ongoing military offensives started in the year 2000, and continue to this day in its full force in Balochistan. Pakistan also tested Islamic nuclear bombs in the Koh Kambaran range and Chaghai hills in Balochistan on 28 May 1998. Pakistan army, its proxies and the criminal death squads have arrested, disappeared, imprisoned, tortured, killed and displaced thousands upon thousands of Baloch political and human rights activists over several decades. Many of the displaced Baloch refugees have sought protection in Western democracies including in the USA. However, the Baloch asylum seekers live an uncertain life in their host countries because the authorities, of the countries where the Baloch seek protection, treat them as Pakistanis.

We appeal the world powers that Baloch refugees should not be called Pakistanis because they are victims of Pakistani state terrorism. Baloch refugees should be given political asylum and protection under the UN and international conventions. Deporting Baloch refugees back to Balochistan will be tantamount to pushing them into the jaws of death. Pakistan is not only committing war crimes in Balochistan but it is also involved in regional terrorism and international blackmailing in the name ‘fight against terrorism’. Thankfully, the world is now slowly realising the double crossing of international community by the Janus-faced state that is Pakistan – because of its involvement, support and sponsoring of religious terrorism. It’s now an undeniable fact that Pakistan has cunningly played a blinder with the West for the last 70 years or so, as it’s involved directly or indirectly in almost all terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Balochistan, India and in many Western capitals. Majority of the attackers were either Pakistan born, or they visited Pakistan at some point before becoming religious monsters and murderous Jihadists. We the Baloch people have been telling the world for ages that Pakistan is a cheat and it is deceiving the world but nobody heeded to us. We are glad that today the entire world is coming to the conclusion that Pakistan is a terrorist sponsoring state. The international realisation of Pakistan’s duplicity is a confirmation of our concerns. We hope that the developing sentiment in the US Senate and Congress to stop funding Pakistan and declare Pakistan a ‘terrorist sponsoring state’ will continue to grow and they will succeed in convincing President Trump’s government to stop supporting Pakistan.

One of the basic principle of President Donald Trump is to stop “making bad deals,” as he would put it. Whatever the United States has with Pakistan is a bad deal. I do not believe anyone thinks Pakistan is an ally of the United States, and a good deal for the United States would be to support the Baloch nation to regain their independence. It is also the best way to bring US troops home from Afghanistan with a victory that maintains US influence in the region. Ladies and Gentlemen: We strongly believe that an independent Balochistan is the key to peace in Afghanistan and in the region because an independent Balochistan will not allow Pakistan’s Punjabi army to send their hired proxies and national assets the Taliban, Haqqani Network and other religious extremist groups to Afghanistan via Balochistan.

Neither will Baloch nation allow their soil to be used against their neighbouring brotherly nations. The secular and tolerant nature and tradition of Baloch nation are compatible with international value and democracy that is why also the international powers must support the Baloch as their natural allies in the war against terrorism and to defeat the spread of growing religious fundamentalism across the globe. Apart from promoting religious fundamentalism, Pakistan has lured China into becoming its crime Partner in Balochistan. The China-Pakistan nexus and the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has become a cause of death and destruction for Baloch nation, especially, for the Baloch people living in Gwadar and Kech districts where Pakistan army carries out regular attacks against innocent civilians in the name of development. We have urged China time and again to stop supporting Pakistan’s evil designs in Balochistan and do not become party between the Baloch and Pakistan conflict. China, however, has chosen to side with the oppressor and occupier against the oppressed and occupied Baloch nation. China’s long term plan, however, is to build a naval base in Gwadar Balochistan and to have control over the strategic strait of Hurmoz to counter US and Indian influence in the region. We request the International media and all freeborn people to stop calling Balochistan a ‘province of Pakistan’, because this is the equivalent to a severe insult for the Baloch people, as we have never willingly joined Pakistan and neither are we happily living under Pakistani occupation. When the media of neighbouring countries does refer to the Baloch as the ‘people of Pakistan’ it comes across like they are unaware and uneducated in terms of the history of the area. I especially urge the Indian media to refer to Pakistan as the RENEGADE TERRITORY of India, as the land now called Pakistan was not brought by the Mughals, instead that once was part of Bharat that was divided by the British. The only major difference is that the now Pakistanis converted to Islam then out of greed, as a direct response to the Jazia tax. As non-Muslims were forced to pay that tax. We Baloch have rejected Pakistani occupation from day one, and since 1948 the Baloch resistance against occupation and desire for freedom has never died. The resistance and war of liberation that we are witnessing in Balochistan today is the continuation of the freedom struggle that our ancestors started years ago. The Baloch liberation struggle will continue until the Baloch become in control of their destiny once again, and regain their sovereignty. Today through this esteemed gathering, we appeal to the democratic nations, international media, international human rights organisations and the regional powers including Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh and other neighbouring states to support our just cause. Indeed, we need your support to regain our independence. An independent Balochistan is not just in the interest of the Baloch, or the region, but it is in the interest of the entire democratic world, as it can bring about regional stability and widespread tranquillity.”

Four years after the UN ceased operations at Choucha camp, authorities have cleared out the remaining men.

Thessa Lageman is a Netherlands-based journalist and photographer who has lived in Tunisia, Kuwait and Egypt.

Correction: July 16, 2017: The MSF representative quoted in this article is Raphael Delhalle. An incorrect name was used in a previous version.

One morning last month, a group of soldiers arrived unexpectedly at Tunisia’s Choucha refugee camp and began clearing the area of the several dozen men who had been living there.

“The soldiers told us to go back to Libya or to board a bus to Tunis,” Mohamed, a 37-year-old refugee from the Ivory Coast who declined to give his last name, told Al Jazeera.

The men were allowed to grab one suitcase or a bag, he added: “We called the others who were working in Ben Guerdane to come quickly and grab their belongings.”

The move came four years after the United Nations officially closed the desert refugee camp near the Libyan border in June 2013. Despite the closure, dozens of men from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana and other African countries – men whose refugee claims had been denied by Western countries – continued living in Choucha amid harshconditions.

Some refugees shared photos and videos of the decimated camp, which were posted to Facebook by local media.

On World Refugee Day, just one day after the camp was cleared, the 35 men who had been ordered to leave Choucha arrived in Tunis. There, they had to wait all day at a train station, with no knowledge of what lay ahead. Doctors Without Borders (known by its French initials, MSF) brought food and water.

“These men have lost trust in most of the organisations providing help,” Raphael Delhalle, the head of MSF’s mission in Tunisia, told Al Jazeera, noting that his group contacted the governor of Tunis and “pushed for a dignified accommodation”.

These men were forgotten for more than six years by everybody. Suddenly, they were pushed out without any information, and they still don’t know what their future will be.

Raphael Delhalle, MSF

The next day, the men were relocated to a youth complex in La Marsa, a wealthy seaside suburb outside Tunis, where they have been staying ever since. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) provides lunches and dinners, while the Tunisian Red Crescent provides breakfasts. It is far more than they used to eat at Choucha.

The men told Al Jazeera that while they were free to come and go from the complex, they remained anxious and fearful of the future. They spent most of their time watching TV or sleeping, they said.

The incident has sparked criticism from rights groups, who have questioned the state’s decision to uproot the men.

“The rushed and forced transfer of a group of 35 individuals to Tunis in harsh conditions and the arbitrary deprivation of their freedom at the Tunis train station for the entire day of 20 June has raised fears of collective arrests, or even deportation operations,” human rights group EuroMed Rights noted in a statement signed by 13 organisations.

The statement calls on Tunisian authorities to “adopt a national legal framework on asylum and refugee protection” and urges the UN refugee agency to reassess the men’s asylum applications.

Since being evicted from Choucha, the men have been staying at a youth centre near Tunis [Photo courtesy of Choucha refugees]

Delhalle was also critical of the way the evacuation was conducted, “with no communication to the men, nor to MSF, the only organisation which was still providing assistance to the people in the camp”.

Mongi Slim, the head of the Tunisian Red Crescent in the southern city of Medenine, said that some of the men from Choucha had been acting as guides for refugees aiming to cross the border into Libya and then on to Europe. Others were “in need of psychiatric treatment”, Slim told Al Jazeera.

The decision to dismantle Choucha was initially taken by Tunisian authorities in 2014, but the closure was frequently postponed, Slim said. According to a report from the Tunisian radio station Mosaique FM, the government plans to open a Free Trade Zone at the camp’s former location.

“The government wants to calm the social protests in Ben Guerdane by installing a Free Trade Zone with Libya close to the borders that would reduce the illegal trade of goods,” Slim said.

Representatives for the Tunisian government and the UN refugee agency had not responded to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment by the time of publication.

Less than two weeks before the razing of Choucha, on the night of June 7, Sudanese refugee Ahmed Moussa died of an illness in hospital in Ben Guerdane, having been brought over from the camp that morning.

Moussa, who had been known in the camp as Mogabe, had previously appeared in a documentary by a Tunisian filmmaker about the Mediterranean refugee crisis.

Another resident, Martin Adriano of South Sudan, died in March 2014 after having a leg amputated earlier that year. Several of his friends said that he died of medical neglect.

Other Choucha refugees have crossed illegally into Europe, sending messages later from Italy or France; still others have disappeared, never to be heard from again.

In recent years, the IOM has helped several dozen Choucha refugees return to their home countries. Ali Ahmed Ali, 28, returned to Chad a few weeks before the destruction of the camp.

“I was too ill and tired to try any longer,” he told Al Jazeera, noting that after 12 years without contact, he crossed back over his parents’ doorstep. “I am now hoping for the best for my friends from Choucha.”

But what will happen to those men now remains unclear. Lorena Lando, the IOM’s representative in Tunisia, said that among the 35 men in La Marsa, only three have what are considered to be valid refugee claims.

The refugees have been in Tunisia since the beginning of 2011, having fled from the civil war in Libya, where they used to work. By the end of 2012, around 4,000 people had been resettled by the UN in a third country. Another 300, who had refugee status but could not be resettled for a variety of reasons, were promised residency and jobs in Tunisia, although many complain that those promises never materialised. A few opted to remain in Choucha alongside dozens of rejected asylum seekers.

“We are coordinating with the Tunisian government to find durable solutions for each person,” Lando said. “Learning about the circumstances of everyone, about their needs, is important, and this will help to find long-term solutions.”

Delhalle reiterated the need to find “dignified solutions” for the men.

“These men were forgotten for more than six years by everybody,” he said. “Suddenly, they were pushed out without any information, and they still don’t know what their future will be. They deserve consideration and dignified solutions.”

The heroic crew of a Turkish ship that saved over 450 migrants off Libya has described the dramatic moments that unfolded during their rescue efforts.

The crew of a chip called “Roseline A,” which belongs to Arkas Holding and which was heading to Tunisia from Libya, noticed that a total of 466 migrants were struggling for their lives off Libya on May 30.

The 18-person-crew spotted the boat when it was about to be torn apart and reached the migrants just in time.

The captain of the ship, Mert Karamahmutoğlu, 37, who has been a sailor for the past 18 years and a captain for the last six, described how the incident unfolded.

“Around noon we received information regarding migrant search and rescue efforts on way from Italia Coast Guard and Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre [MRCC] some 75 miles south of us. The initial information we had was that there were some 3,000 people in the sea waiting to be saved. We were six hours away from the scene,” Karamahmutoğlu told daily Hürriyet in a port in Istanbul.

“We changed our route and went to help. We held a meeting with my crew and distributed the work until we reached the scene. There are always supplies ready in Arkas ships in the event of situations like these,” he also said.

Karamahmutoğlu noted that the boats were packed with people waiting to be rescued after many hours stranded at sea.

“There were 466 people on the boat. They had been waiting to be saved for two days on the sea and they had started to attack each other. When we threw down ropes and ladders, they wanted to be the first ones to get out of the boat and jumped over each other. It was completely a life and death situation. We calmed them down with announcements,” he added.

Karamahmutoğlu said the boat that the migrants had been on would normally take just a maximum of 20 people and that he would not use it “even if only to travel from Üsküdar to Beşiktaş in Istanbul.

“The human smugglers received between $500 and $2,000 from each migrant. They brought the refugees to the boat with Zodiac boats. Some of the migrants didn’t want to get on it but the smugglers threatened them with rifles. It was obvious that the boat wouldn’t be able to reach the land. But luckily we found them,” he said, also describing preparations made for the comfort of the saved refugees.

“We made preparations in accordance with their basic needs. We knit covers and used them as blankets. We created a menu consisting of meat, pasta and lentils. After all, these people had been hungry for five days and needed protein. We also set up portable toilets and showers on the deck,” he said.

Saying he tried to learn the stories of the migrants during the 26 hours they were together on the ship, Karamahmutoğlu said they were trying to escape from their countries to escape death.

The third captain of the ship, Berkay Özbek, 28, said the process of getting all refugees on board was not easy.

“It took nearly two hours for all of them to get on the ship. The fact that they all hugged me to show their gratitude is something that I will never forget for the rest of my life,” Özbek said, adding that they tried to cheer up the refugees.

“A friend of ours mimicked Michael Jackson. They immediately started laughing. It made us even more happy to see the people who survived death just a couple of hours ago smile,” he added.

An intern on the ship, Aybike Ceylan, 21, desribed the scene of the refugees trying to get on board as “spine-chilling.”

“Because women and children couldn’t climb up with ropes, we tried to help them with providing ladders. We sent six pregnant women to a ship of the Italian Naval Forces, as well as the wounded … There were 35 children aged between six and 10 and we took them to a separate boat,” Ceylan said.

]]>http://dawatmedia.com/asylum-seekers-and-refugees/heroic-crew-of-turkish-ship-that-rescued-over-450-migrants-describe-dramatic-incident/feed/0At least 20 migrants dead in Mediterraneanhttp://dawatmedia.com/asylum-seekers-and-refugees/at-least-20-migrants-dead-in-mediterranean/
http://dawatmedia.com/asylum-seekers-and-refugees/at-least-20-migrants-dead-in-mediterranean/#respondWed, 24 May 2017 11:39:33 +0000http://dawatmedia.com/?p=789The bodies of at least 20 have been found. A search by the Italian coast guard is ongoing to rescue 1,700 people.

At least 20dead bodies have been seen in the sea some 30 miles off the coast of Libya, Italy’s Coast Guard said on Wednesday, as efforts to rescue some 1,700 people packed onto 15 boats continued.

“About 200 people fell into the water when one of the boats listed dangerously,” Coast Guard Commander Cosimo Nicastro told Reuters. “At least 20 dead bodies were spotted in the water.”

Co-founder of humanitarian rescue group MOAS, Chris Catrambone, said on Twitter that many corpses had been brought on board their ship, and that toddlers were among the dead seen in the water.

The Coast Guard is calling in more ships to help with rescues, Nicastro said. Apart from the MOAS vessel, a tug boat was assisting in rescues coordinated by the Italian Coast Guard in Rome.

The migrants were on a wooden boat carrying between 500 and 700 people and were just 20 nautical miles off the Libyan coast when the accident happened.

The crew of the Phoenix aid boat, chartered by the Maltese NGO Moas, had begun the rescue and were distributing life jackets when many of those on deck fell into the water, perhaps knocked off balance by a wave.

“It’s not a scene from a horror movie, it’s a real-life tragedy that is taking place today at the gates of Europe,” said Chris Catrambone, Moas co-founder, who was aboard the Phoenix and published photos showing dozens of migrants in the water.

With the help of an Italian coast guard ship and several commercial ships, rescuers raced to drag as many people as possible from the water, while a helicopter and military aircraft dropped lifeboats.

“There are still about 30 corpses floating in the area, many are young children,” Catrambone added.

In total, about 15 relief operations were underway on Wednesday off Libya, the coast guard said without being able to give a total for the number of migrants involved.

On Tuesday, they coordinated the relief of about 1,500 migrants, while their Libyan counterparts intercepted 237 others.

People who were evacuated from four besieged towns to their respective destinations with one convoy as they wait at a transit point in al-Rashideen, Syria April 21, 2017. (Reuters)

The Associated Press

Tuesday, 25 April 2017

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is warning that the forced evacuation of civilians in Syria may be a war crime, as one of the largest population transfers in the country’s six-year civil war is taking place.

Guterres said in a report to the Security Council circulated Monday that the United Nations has repeatedly expressed concern at local agreements between the Syrian government and opposition groups that follow the decimation of an area and result in the forced displacement of any civilians.

He reminded the parties to such agreements that under international humanitarian law “the forced displacement of civilians for reasons relating to the conflict “is permissible solely in order to guarantee their security or for imperative military necessity.”

“Forced displacement for any other reason relating to the conflict is prohibited and may constitute a war crime,” Guterres said.

Under the deal between the government and opposition, brokered by outside parties including Qatar, an estimated 30,000 people will be transferred over 60 days from their besieged hometowns and neighborhoods, including around Damascus, Homs and Aleppo.

The evacuations from four besieged villages “ pro-government Foua and Kfraya and opposition-held Madaya and Zabadani “ were delayed after a bombing killed more than 120 evacuees.

Critics say the population transfers are redrawing Syria’s map along sectarian and political lines, and the opposition has described the evacuations as “demographic engineering.”

The UN has played no role and Guterres stressed that any evacuations must be safe, voluntary and to a place of the civilians’ choosing.

“Those displaced must be allowed to return voluntarily to their homes as soon as the situation allows,” he said.
The secretary-general also said he remains “deeply troubled” at the high level of civilian casualties from air strikes and explosive weapons fired into populated areas.

These strikes are also destroying “the building blocks of civilian life” critical to Syrians, including bakeries, water stations, hospitals, schools and places of worship, he said.

In the report Guterres criticized all parties for blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid to thousands of people who desperately need help.

On a somewhat positive note, he said “the steady work” by the government and opposition parties at the last round of UN-mediated political talks in March aimed at ending the war “should not be underestimated or dismissed.”

He pointed to the assertion by all parties “that there should be no constitutional or security vacuum as a negotiated political transition is implemented,” calling this “an important step” in understanding what is required if a political transition is to be negotiated.

Guterres said it was “significant” that both sides expressed willingness to intensify consultations with the UN between negotiations “so that further progress may be made during the next round as quickly as possible to solve the conflict in the country.”